Broken Hill & White Cliffs

Broken Hill & White Cliffs - 5th – 9th April

Murray River National Park

From Murray River NP

The Murray River is one of Australia’s greatest rivers passing through 3 states before hitting the sea. We spent the night bush camping on the side of the river, thoroughly enjoying the peace and quite as we overlooked the river. It is a shame that we couldn’t spend longer here and only got to enjoy the one night. Definitely somewhere we would love to explore some more.

Next morning we set off early for Broken Hill in NSW for the one night before heading to White Cliffs. White Cliffs is an opal mining town that is a little hard to describe. It is basically built in an opal field, it has one shop that services everything and one pub. To the North of the town is what is called ‘the claims’ these are basically pieces of land that belong to someone, this person has one day the intention of mining this piece of land for opals. The whole set up was like something from the 1900’s with people digging holes in search of the hidden loot. If they didn’t get lucky then they leave a great big shaft in the ground and move on. There were 1000’s of these disused shafts with a pile of discarded earth and rocks next to them (called mullocks). It must be what pioneering times would have been like. We had fun getting lost in this sea of mullocks.

White Cliffs, NSW

From Broken Hill & White Cliffs

On our way to White Cliffs from Broken Hill (290kms) we saw the magnificent Wedge Tailed Eagle. It is a truly massive bird and amazed us with its wingspan and with the slow gracefulness that it took off with. The road was straight and apart from the Eagles, pretty uneventful. That was until we hit White Cliffs Info centre and got out of the car to a hissing noise coming from the back of the car. On inspection we discovered our 2nd puncture of the trip, this was in addition to the chip in the windscreen we also picked up on this journey – we were beginning to wonder if it was worth coming out here!! Angrily and in a sea of flies, Carl changed the tyre and we moved on gingerly now knowing that another puncture out here could be a real problem.

Puncture Number 2

From Broken Hill & White Cliffs

White Cliffs explored and needing accommodation here for the night we decided that after the day we’d had, the campsite was not that appealing. A night in the White Cliffs Underground Motel was an interesting prospect. There are a lot of houses built into the ground in WC. This is to escape the ridiculously hot temps of the summer, where it can get to 50C! The Underground Motel was we guessed natural progression from underground houses. We booked ourselves in and inquisitively entered the hallways of what was basically a very large rabbit burrow! The whole place was cut out of the rocks and the ambient temperature inside was always 22C regardless of what was going on outside. On our particular day this was warmer than outside – it was unseasonably cold here for the time of year – There was a nasty southerly breeze. We enjoyed our evening in the underground bar, but sleeping was unnaturally quite for us after sleeping outside for so long, it took some time to get use to it.

Underground Hotel, White Cliffs

From Broken Hill & White Cliffs

We headed back to Broken Hill for the next couple of nights to sort out the tyre and do some washing. We went out to Silverton where a lot of Australian movies have been shot (Mad Max 2, Pricilla Queen of the Desert). It is a typical looking outback town with a few old stone buildings scattered around and a pub.

Mundi Mundi Lookout

From Broken Hill & White Cliffs

We headed out to Mundi Mundi lookout which we had read about and as we came over the hill we had a truly amazing view. The land was so flat and you could see forever into the horizon. The say you can see the curvature of the earth here. We had a spot of lunch here while taking in the expanse of the land then headed back to Broken Hill where we potted around and looked at the mines.

Silverton, NSW

From Broken Hill & White Cliffs

Murray River NP

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Ben Boyd Natioanl Park and Eden

Ben Boyd Natioanl Park and Eden - 12-14th February 2009

Eden, NSW

From Ben Boyd NP & Eden

After we felt it safe to do so we set out from Narooma – slightly delayed, but in good spirits. Our next two nights were to be spent in our last NSW destination for some time (maybe at all). Eden was the name of the town and we had heard that it was a very nice fishing town on the water.
On the way to Eden we stopped off at Ben Boyd NP to see a sandstone cliff face dating back 60 million years called The Pinnacles. This was a 1km walk (round trip) from the car park and was a little underwhelming; we took the obligatory pics and carried on our way to Eden.
We proceeded to the Information office in Eden where we asked about a campsite recommended to us by a fellow camper in Narooma. We gathered all info we needed for the next few days and set about finding the site.
Our campsite was right across from the beach one side (across a street) and on a lake the other side – Pretty idyllic I would say. We had a sunset the night we arrived and took a few pics – which I am sure you will see below!

Eden NSW

From Ben Boyd NP & Eden

We went for a walk into the town the next day for supplies and a piece of cake (Heidi!!) and had a nice walk back along the sea front.
That evening we planned our trip to Croajingolong NP where we would have no access to water or showers for 3 nights – Pit Toilets though – Oh the JOY! The smell is something to behold!

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Wadbilliga National Park & Narooma

Wadbilliga National Park & Narooma - 7th-11th Feb 2009

A long way to the next fuel!

From Wadbilliga NP

If you look at a map of this part of Australia you will notice that there is no real direct route from Jindabyne to the coast by main road. There is however is 4x4 track through the Great Dividing Range which was meant to be a good challenge offering plenty of good views. This was to be our path to the coast, we left camp at around 10.30am and travelled back along some of the road we used to get to the Snowy’s. Through Jindabyne to Cooma, from Cooma we went to Countegany where the road turns from bitumen to dirt (they have many different types of dirt roads here in Oz; Gravel, sandy, stony, rocky, mud, etc) This road would be best described as a bit rocky but mostly gravel.
We were looking for a place called the Cascades, which we had heard was a very nice spot – popular with the locals for cooling off in the hot temps. The day was pretty hot – 37C – and the plan was to go there take some pics maybe go for a swim and then head for the coast. We were following a route described in an “Australia by 4wd” book given to Carl as a birthday pressie back in 2007. It was a little hard to follow as we were doing their route backwards. One sentence at a time was the way we did it!
Needless to say we missed a turning and had to chuck a U-ey. We had gone about 8ks to far. About 4ks back the way we came, Carl said that the car sounds funny and feels a little weird – OH NO we thought. Heidi jumped out and sure enough the passenger rear tyre was as flat as a pancake! (discovered it was a nail)

Puncture

From Wadbilliga NP

Well we had prepared for this eventuality so we set about getting the spare on. The wheel came off easy enough considering how rusted the nuts looked! Now to get the car off the floor (easier said than done). We had purchased a Hi-lift jack, so we untied it from the roof rack and proceeded to line it up with the jacking point. It seems the nose on the jack is not long enough to reach the point, no matter how hard we tried! Plan B was the little bottle jack in the back that had been stowed away ever since we bought the car. Once I got it out it was immediately apparent this wasn’t going to work either, as all of the fluid had leaked out and it wouldn’t lift a rock let alone a 4x4!!
BUGGER

New tyre ready to go

From Wadbilliga NP

Now we may be in a little strife! Only 2 cars had passed us in our near 2 hours on this road, what are we gonna do? Just as Carl was contemplating lifting the whole back of the car by the recovery point, a car that had already passed us came back in the other direction – turns out they had missed the turn off to the very same place that we were going! Carl flagged them down and asked the guy if he had a jack fit for lifting our wheel off the floor. The man looked a little flustered and annoyed but was very helpful. He rummaged in his very packed boot for his bottle jack. To cut a long story short we eventually got the correct point to jack from and changed the tyre over. The man and his family rushed off. We thanked them endlessly for their help and set about packing everything back into the car and tying the useless jack back to the roof rack.

Now with most of the day gone, heading to the coast was not a possibility. Sunday was meant to be 47C and we were going to have to drive in it – Great!
We headed off to the Cascades as we had read there was a nice campsite there and it was FREE!! We got there in the afternoon after 40 mins driving down a fairly rough gravel road. We were of course very nervous now as we had no spare! We set up camp and went for a swim in the cascades. The cascades are basically a few pools that pour down to one large one with a small waterfall down some smooth rocks. Kids were using it like we used to use the red slides at the Oasis in Swindon! After cooling off we went back to camp, made a salad, harassed once again by the bloody flies. Then we were in bed by 9pm!

The Cascades, Wadbiliga National Park

From Wadbilliga NP

We got up nice and early and were away by 8:30, we decided that we would still continue on the most direct route as it was a lot shorter in distance than going via the main road. The route was harder and longer than we first thought but we enjoyed it, taking it very steady. We drove through rivers, up mountains, had to open and close gates and the views were pretty damn good! The only issue was the heat – we were both just sat there sweating. The wind coming in through the windows was actually hot! I checked the temp in the car and it was nearly 47C and we were up a mountain! Jees we thought, we need to get to the coast and the sea breeze.

Wadbiliga National Park

From Wadbilliga NP

After 4 hours of 4x4ing with no spare it was nice to be back on the bitumen. We pulled over for a break and put the bonnet up on OJ as we had been having fuel vaporisation issues again (not surprisingly) we were barely out of 2nd gear for 4 hrs in that heat. As we sat there drinking the last of the cold water (plenty of warm still left!) a lady pulled up in a car towing a trailer and asked if we were ok? We said that we were just letting the car cool after driving over the range. She said oh good you don’t want to be stuck out here, especially with the fires. We were like WHAT? Fires? She asked if we had seen any smoke. We told her we had not seen any and she was pleased (not that we had been looking for it). She went off saying that she was in preservation mode and was ready to pack the trailer and get out! We headed off with this news aiming for the coast as fast as poorly OJ would get us there. As soon as we got 500m up the road and over a hill we could see smoke and this just pushed us on even quicker. Whilst on our way I said to Heidi that it felt noticeably cooler in the car and outside. Sure enough the temp gauge said 40C (sweet we thought). We were heading for Narooma – one of the bigger looking places on this part of the coast. As we approached the air was getting ever cooler and I joked to Heidi “Can you get me my jumper please!” finally we stopped, smoke still pouring from behind the hill, relieved and pretty tired. We had no food since brekkie and were looking for a place to eat. We stopped in a car park and let OJ cool down whilst we jumped out to stretch. Holy Hell! We got out and felt something we had not for a loooong time – COLD!
I checked the temp again and in 1hr it had dropped 20 degrees to 26C!!! The relief was overwhelming we were so happy to see the ocean. After fish and chips in what was a comparatively biting wind! We set off in search of a place to camp and a place to replace the spare – all accomplished with ease.

Narooma campsite

From Narooma

So here we are now in Narooma. We are both feeling a bit empty after all the terrible news of the fires. Our next port of call was going to be Victoria and Melbourne in particular, but we are going to give it time before heading any further south. Can’t stop thinking about the so many people that have been affected by the devastation and terror of the fires. It is shocking the speed of these things and how, often there is no escape. The stories in the paper bring you close to tears. This part of the blog will end here, our thoughts with all those terribly affected by one of the worst natural disasters in Australian history…



WADBILLIGA NP

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NAROOMA

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Snowy Mountains

Snowy Mountains - 4th Feb – 7th Feb

So… away from the heat eh? NOPE!
Ok it in not quite as hot as it was in Canberra but it is far from the relief we had hoped for!! We decided to stay on an un-powered site at Kosciuszko Mountain Retreat in Kosciuszko National Park (The NSW park portion of the Snowy’s, The Victoria part is called Alpine National Park)

Kosciuszko National Park

From Snowys

The park is nice, filled with trees and back to nature. The flies are a little annoying but we are learning to live with them after the walk we did on our first day. We decided we would do a 10km return walk to a place called Bob’s Ridge. Apparently from the top you could see views across the Murray river into Victoria. Great we thought, we took the camera, the wide angle lens and plenty of food and water.
We arrived around 11ish and the first thing I noticed was the scenery. Really nice mountain views, streams (Creeks for you ozzies! Creek isn’t as nice a word as stream!). We hopped out and there were a lot of flies about. I just thought that they were in the parking area for the walk and that when we got off into the wilderness there wouldn’t be too many about. I was sooo wrong it’s not even funny! The flies were everywhere and for some reason they wanted to be in your face and in your ears. They are not content with sitting on your bag or hat for long. They NEED to be in your face. We spent more energy in the first 2ks trying to swat flies than we did walking. They are just SOO annoying! After a while the swatting became less vigorous and we just gently wafted our hands. Only swatting them off of us when 5 kills at once were guaranteed!! (Yes there were that many!!)

Snowy Mountains

From Snowys

I don’t know how we did I but we managed to carry on for the whole 5ks (We believe – there are no signs in a Wilderness Area you see). We saw a lovely view from the top of our steady 5km climb but somehow it didn’t feel worth it, plus we didn’t know if we had the right spot. Every time we checked to see we would be swarmed by all of the flies that were hitching a lift! So no time to take a pic, we hurried off down the mountain, flies swarming everywhere still. Shame because it could have been a really nice walk, instead it was like a slow torture. We laugh about it now, but it wasn’t fun at the time. I am amazed at how far we went considering.

After getting back to the car and getting the last of the flies out, we continued down the Alpine Way stopping at points of interest. This included Thredbo, where we paid $1.60 a litre for petrol!!! Better get used to it I spose. Thredbo is a nice little ski resort but as you can imagine at around 28C it was a little short on visitors! Tho cycling appeared to big round here. Imagine all of the flies you could get lodged in your teeth – awesome!
Then onto the best part of the day for us, we drove to a place called Tom Groggin. It is right on the NSW/Victoria border on the banks of the Murray river. There is no road into Victoria from here, however we were intrigued when we heard that there was a ford to get across. This could be the 1st chance to put OJ into 4wd I thought. So off we went driving near the river looking for this crossing point. We tried a few spots and had no luck and just as we were about to give up we saw a sign “Caution deep ford” COOL I thought. We drove down the embankment and sure enough there was a river bed that was covered in pebbles and looked suitable for crossing. We walked to the edge and it didn’t look to deep. I remembered training where the instructor said that water looks shallower than what it is and threw in a rock. Sure enough it was deeper than we thought. Heidi put on her rock shoes and proceeded to wade across the river thigh deep at one point! I thought “hmm I am sure OJ can handle this” plus I wanted to say that we had crossed the Murray in to Victoria.

Heidi in Murray River

From Snowys

Heidi got to the other side and pointed out that there was one large boulder to go around. I beckoned her back across and asked if she would like a lift! She hopped in, I locked the hubs and put OJ in 4L (4wd Low Range). Then I rumbled across the river avoiding the rock and scrambled up the opposite embankment. Wahoo our first river crossing of the trip and all went smoothly. They were no roads from here back to camp so a quick pic of the “Welcome to Alpine National Park” sign and a 3 point turn. Back across the river I went. This time more relaxed I looked out of the side window and realised how deep the water actually was. (3 inches up the drivers door!) Out I came the other side and I watched the water drain out from OJ – cool! We headed off back to camp exhausted after a long day walking and driving. Couple of glasses of wine and some cheese and biscuits! Sweet day after all.

Crossing the Murray River

From Snowys

Today was a bit of a nothing day as we set off for the caves but decided to turn around as the car seemed to be having a bit of trouble, after a call to the very nice mechanic in Canberra it seems the fuel was vaporising due to the high temperatures and was having trouble getting through. So we headed back to camp to get organised for leaving tomorrow and updated our blog.

A Possum

From Snowys

We are heading for the coast tomorrow for some sand and cooling surf, I think we are just going to take a couple of days chilling on the beach as we make our way down to Melbourne. NSW is in for a heat wave over the weekend so we are running from the sun (47C is predicted for some parts!!)

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Hunter Valley

Hunter Valley - 27th Jan to 30th Jan 2009

Hunter Valley Purchases

From Hunter Valley

The Hunter Valley is 2 hours North of Sydney, but inland. It is a very pretty and well kept area with over 150 vineyards and wineries. With Heidi’s stiff neck and the tent being wet and caked in mud we decided to check the WOTIF website to see if there were any deals on a real bed for the night. We found a self contained apartment for half price and decided to go for this. A little over our budget but well worth it considering our current plight! The Leisure Inn Pokolbin Hill turned out to be just what we needed. It is right in the heart of wine country with 3 vineyards in walking distance, a pool, spa in the room and a view to die for – gonna be hard to leave!

Whilst here we have been to 4 Wineries and done some tasting also some spending too! The best we went to was McGuigan’s, this place was friendly, informative and had a cheese factory built in! Yum! We spent a little time here tasting wine and cheese. Heidi settled on a Gerwurtz Traminer (White) and some Ash Brie and Carl a Cab Shiraz (Red) and an Irish Mature Cheddar. We then drove carefully off to Tyrell’s winery – one of the oldest here in the valley – for a wine tour. It was very interesting and showed wine making to be not as complicated as we thought. Home we went with our purchases and indulged.
The next day was 2 more Wineries Lindeman’s and Rosemount Estate. We bought another couple of bottles more careful driving (all the tasting you see) and headed back for a dip in the pool and a Steak on the BBQ. It’s 37 degrees! We did try to go to Wyndam Estate (Carl’s favourite Shiraz) but they only open cellar door on weekends – no good to us as we are off in the morning and it is Thursday .

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Sydney

Sydney - 24th Jan to 27th Jan 2009

During our brief stay in Sydney we travelled to Botany Bay and visited the place that Captain Cook first landed in Australia back in 1770. We found out that when Cptn Cook later claimed the land for England in 1788, he did so just a few days before a french guy claimed it for France. Phew! Don’t think this place would be quite so appealing if it were full of frenchies!!

Port Jackson was our next spot on the tour of Sydney; this is where the calm of Sydney Harbour meets the open Pacific Ocean. We had a walk around after spending 30 mins looking for a parking spot – Nightmare!

Sydney Side Street

From Sydney

We then drove through Bronte and Bondi, wanting to stop but never finding a spot to park. This place is so busy! We finally stopped for lunch at an awesome spot over looking the Harbour Bridge and Opera house. It was a long way off but looked so good! Imagine New Year’s would look great from up here. Heidi had woken up with a very painful stiff neck in the morning so I had to do all of the driving in Sydney – not a pleasant experience (Thank god for the Sat Nav – Purchased with the Koenig’s Xmas pressie money – Thanks Guys!).
The next day was Australia Day and we had planned to go into the city and watch the celebrations, but unfortunately due to Heidi being in so much pain with her neck we spent the day wandering around Manly beach and then just had a relaxing night back at the camp ground with some wine and cheese reading up on the Hunter Valley. This turned out be fine with us because it just rained all night and into the morning.

The next day packing up was a nightmare – the rain made everything sopping and we couldn’t pack the car properly. Carl rigged up a tarp over the back of the car coming off the roof rack and that gave us the space we needed to pack it up. 4 hours later still with no breakfast inside us, wet and 1 hour late for check out we had finished. The tent was in a bin liner covered in dirt and if we weren’t laughing so much about the disaster we would have been crying!! Off to the showers we went, man that felt so good! Then to MacDonald’s! Before the drive to the Hunter Valley (Wine Country).

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Our first week away

Brisbane to Sydney Our first week away - 19th January – 24th January 2009

Well we made it to Sydney for our Campsite booking of 24th Jan (Australia Day long weekend) with out too much drama. We finally got going on Monday 4 hours after we planned after re-packing the car and saying good bye. It didn’t take too long for something to go wrong as when we got to the garage to fill up and check the tyres, Heidi managed to trip over the kerb and bruise her wrist. Great start!!

Our first stop was Byron Bay for a trip to the Easterly most point of the Australian main land (We plan to do all 4 points of the compass). Seemed a nice little place – a shame we couldn’t stay a bit longer.

Byron Bay Lighthouse

From Brisbane to Sydney

Our first night was spent in Ballina on a lovely little campsite. It was our first night in the roof top tent, which I must say was very comfortable. In the morning we headed off for Coffs Harbour to see the family. 75kms out from the Ballina campsite (an hour) Carl suddenly realised that we had left all of our ice packs in the freezer at the campsite. After a bit of a debate we decided to head back to Ballina to pick them up, still deciding if the 2 hour trip to get back to where we were was worth while?!!

On the way back to the camp site we heard a noise up on the roof that sounded like a stone, then a noise on the road that sounded metallic (good job the windows were open!). Carl stopped the car 50m up the road and went back up the road (the relatively busy Pacific Highway through Broadwater) to look for the source of the noise. He found a large shiny bolt that looked too new to have been there long!
We investigated the roof rack and its contents, undoing and checking the tent in the 30C heat on the side of the road, everything appeared to be normal. So we carried on to rescue the ice packs. Almost at the camp site Carl realised that the bolt may have come from the new Hi-lift Jack that we had bought. Upon checking the jack sure enough the head piece that lifts the car was loose. Amazing that it hadn’t fallen off, even more amazing though was that the nut the that went with the bolt was still sat on the hole where the bolt should have been!! We were very lucky.

When we finally arrived in Coramba (2 hours late) it was nice to be spoiled at Nick and Jackie’s for the night, We had dinner at the Coramba Hotel (a nice little country pub). We had time to catch up with a chat and when back at their place to learn to tie the truckies knot!! (thanks again).

Gloucester Bird

From Brisbane to Sydney

We then continued south looking for a nice spot to stop for another “over-nighter”. We saw a National Park at Crowdy Bay. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see much of the park as we had to get going the next day to Barrington Tops National Park. We did get our first taste of cold showers and ‘pit toilets’ however!! (For those that don’t know what a ‘pit toilet’ is, It has no water and is basically a toilet shaped seat over a large hole in the ground. The idea is that the errr... ‘waste’ shall we call it composts down over time therefore no plumbing is required. As you can imagine though the smell and the flies are not very pleasant!!

Barrington tops is inland a bit near Gloucester and Stroud - this we found highly amusing and even more so as we drove into Gloucestershire!! Here we found a very cheap camping spot on somebodies property at the bottom of the hills with riverside camping. A great place with basic toilets and a warm shower (not bad just lots of spiders!) and we got a good spot overlooking the river. It was perfect apart from the constant buzz of the flies – something we will be getting used to I believe.
We stayed a couple of nights here and it was nice to settle, I (Heidi) managed to get my finger pinched in the table which hurt so much I felt like I had chopped it off! The pain almost caused me to faint which was a very scary experience for Carl! So I’m doing well with the injuries!

Barrington Tops National Park

From Brisbane to Sydney

We headed up into the rain forest which was some nice relief from the hot weather, but the car was having a bit of trouble starting so headed back to Gloucester to get a mechanic to check it out. He couldn’t find anything wrong and thought we may have been just flooding the engine and all seems ok now. (glad to be in Sydney just in case tho, the RACQ may be coming in handy!!). We had a couple of very hot days camping but the nights were cool so easy to sleep. Carl went to war with a can of bug killer on the flies – not that it made any difference but he was happy.

We headed to Sydney and took our time getting there as it was so so hot and both of us were glad to be in the air con. Apparently the temp was 38C and the wind was so warm it was horrid. We are on a full facility camp site whilst in Sydney and glad of the power (everything is on charge!) The showers are very clean and posh – look like they have no place on a campsite! We have set up camp for the next 3 nights and glad to have some space in the car.

So today we are off to explore a bit of Sydney we haven’t seen before, making full use of having our own transport and it is a lot cooler today, the forecast is about 25C, so it will be nice to do a bit of walking. It is Australia Day long weekend so we will be enjoying the celebrations at some point over the weekend.

Well our first week has been fun, hot, sweaty, hard work, trying, constantly full of setting up and packing away, but we have thoroughly enjoyed the starry nights, gorgeous mornings, wildlife, scenery and just being together. Next week we head to Hunter Valley for wine and cheese tasting!

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